A talk by Frater Choronzon first delivered on
Monday 8th October 1990 to Philos-O-Forum at Bullfrog's.
To begin I would like to recount a few anecdotal tales which illustrate phenomena which I would class in the domain of 'So-called Magic', and also some examples of what I consider to be Fraud masquerading as magic and Bullshit masquerading as magic.
The late Dr Robin Farquharson was one of the most gifted individuals it has ever been my privelege to know. His doctorate for original work on the Theory of Voting (psephology as it's called in the trade) was awarded by the University of Oxford in 1958, and he won the Monograph Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for related work in 1961. At the time when I met him in 1968 he had recently been stripped of his post as a Senior Research Fellow ("Don") in Management Studies at Churchill College, Cambridge.
I first encountered him at a meeting of the 'Anti-University'. This was a loose knit structure which operated from a series of short term addresses. Its primary function was to promote serious academic work into subject areas which were considered to be neglected by conventional Universities.
Among the assembled Anarchist Philosophers, Situationists, Astrologers and Crack-pots there was this eminently respectable gentleman, neatly tumed out in a business suit. He presented a complete contrast to the tie-dyed majority of the delegates, and they were a little suspicious of him; Police Spy? CIA Agent? His contributions were succinct and positive however, and I was struck by his ability to cut through the periphera of an issue and apply his thinking to the critical elements. He was a tall man, maybe 6 ft 2 inches, fortyish with greying, thinning hair and that wild-eyed look which comes across, for example, in some portraits of Beethoven.
Robin's fall from academic grace was occasioned by his mental balance. He writes in the preface to his book Drop Out: "I am a manic-depressive. When I'm up, I have no judgement, but fantastic drive; when I'm down, I have judgement, but no drive at all. In between I pass for normal well enough."
One evening he turned up at the Westbourne Park Road flat which I shared with some friends, carrying a large portable radio receiver under his arm. The door was opened and he seemed agitated. "You don't trust me", he said, the speech tumbling out in a flurry, "you all think I'm a spy. Well, I'll prove to you that I'm not!"
With that he assumed entry. Seated on the floor in the front room he started singing a song loudly; with imperfect pitch, but recognisable. All the while he was fiddling with the tuner dial on the portable radio, but with the set switched off. We couldn't figure out what he was up to, but suddenly he turned the radio on loud and the song he was singing came forth over the airwaves, exactly synchronised with his voice.
He roared with laughter as we scratched our heads, not completely taking in what we were witnessing.
He switched the radio off and lapsed into a learned sounding commentary on a topic of current news interest, all the while twiddling the tuner dial. After a further ten or fifteen seconds he switched the radio on and the commentary programme he had located confinued what he was saying.
Next Robin started speaking in German. He tuned the radio again, switched it on and out flowed the Deutsch, absolutely contiguous with what he was saying.
"I told you I would prove that I wasn't a spy."
We thought it was a conjuring trick, some stunt with a tape recorder. But no, he really did appear to have some bizarre ability to pick up radio waves in his head.
In later years, having got to know him better, we occasionally discussed this offbeat talent. He explained that it only occurred infrequently at a particular stage in the progression of his manic state, and it seemed that the drugs administered interfered with it. I asked if he had ever done any scientific analysis of the process involved, and he said that he generally kept the ability to himself, because he appreciated the sort of pressures and experimentation he might be subjected to if he admitted it or demonstrated it to the wrong company.
The proof was accepted. There was no way that a spy with that sort of talent could possibly be assigned to check up on the Anti-University or the Human Zoo in Westbourne Park Road.
Robin was delighted and carried on with his party-trick for some hours. Suddenly he became very sad. He picked up a news flash that Yuri Gagarin, the Russian who was first in space, had died in an air crash. It transpired that Robin had a deep personal admiration for Gagarin and he was genuinely moved by the sudden news. The date was 27th March 1968.
Robin Farquharson would not have thought of himself as a magician, nontheless in the eyes of his beholders he certainly appeared to be able to exhibit what might pass for a magical power. People on the verge of mental instability frequently 'hear voices'; Robin's talent was in being able to recognise what it was he was hearing.
This tale is not so easy to date precisely, and the events described took place over a number of weeks, probably in 1979 or 1980. This very imprecision is in itself a good illustration of the importance of keeping a magical diary - I wish I had one for those years.
The story concerns two magicians, let's call them Fred and Ginger, who are both still alive and living today in the UK. A decade ago they were involved respectively in writing and publishing specialist occult texts. A dispute over literary rights, title, and copyright in some material had boiled up between Ginger and a rival publisher. One day he came to visit me in Brockley, where I was living. He was a sorry sight - his luxuriant shoulder length hair had been falling out in clumps, and this affliction was not restricted to his head. His whole body appeared to be presenting the syndrome known to medics as Alopecia, i.e. total loss of body hair.
Fred and Ginger were living very close to each other and were practising occasional magical work together, and they decided to investigate whether there was some praeter-natural basis to Ginger's misfortune. By some act of divination, a linkage was established to the publishing row then in progress between Ginger and his rival, and it seemed that he might be the subject of some sort of occult attack. An experiment in controlled dreaming was then carried out. By this means Ginger was "seen" to be suffering harassment from an entity which had the general form and appearance of a giant lobster or crayfish. After some research in classical works of Demonology, Ginger's tormentor was identified as Tromes, a 'servitor' of Beelzebub, and one of the 'evil spirits' of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage. These entities are supposedly available to carry out the bidding of persons who have successfully undertaken the six months of magical training set out in that book. Fred and Ginger decided that the best course of action was to attempt to bind Tromes by ritual means, and if possible neutralise it. They devised an appropriate procedure which culminated in Tromes being magically constrained inside a rather mucky Quartz Crystal. This being one Fred had himself extracted (in my company) from the wall of a horizontal shaft in a disused lead mine at Rhandirmwyn in mid-Wales.
Ginger's alopecia condition showed an immediate improvement, and after a few months he had no residual trace of the condition. Today his hair growth is completely normal - in fact he has a lot more of it than many of us of similar years!
A corroborative verification of these events may be available in the experience of anyone who has since completed the operation of Abra-Melin. At the point in the working where the Servitors of Beelzebub are presented to the aspirant, it may well be that an alert operator would notice that one of the 49 demons in question is missing! If this happens (or has happened) to any of you, at least you know why - Tromes has been imprisoned in a Rhandirmwyn Crystal for afflicting an innocent magician with alopecia. AUM HA!
On Spring Bank Holiday Monday 28th May 1990 a large number of people attending a festival in Telegraph Hill Park were treated to what may, thus far, have been a unique exprience - a public recital of verse composed in a strange language called Enochian.
The 'unique selling proposition' for the Enochian language is that, as far as can be determined, it has never been used for communication between human beings! Fanciful attributions have been made suggesting that it was the language in common use before the collapse of the Tower of Babel, but this seems as improbable as the suggestion that the Freemasons built the Pyramids of Egypt. There is in fact no record of the language having existed prior to a series of well documented workings by Doctor John Dee and Sir Edward Kelley between 1583 and 1587.
Dee was a rennaissance scholar; an accomplished mathematician and scientist in the accepted modern sense of those terms. He was also Court Astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, and enjoyed (or suffered) some reputation as an Alchemist. Kelley has a less creditable pedigree, and was widely thought to be a charlatan. He came to Dee seeking work as a 'scryer' - i.e. as someone who claimed to be able to see spirits by some process of clairvoyant perception. After testing his abilities, Dee seems to have been convinced that Kelley was able to deliver the goods, and a remarkable series of occult sessions took place during the following years.
In response to appropriate exhortations and orisons delivered by Dee, Kelley was able to 'see' manifestations of the big-name Archangels of Biblical tradition, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Uriel and communicated various geometric designs, talismans, letters of mysterious script and acrostic figures made up of the same, together with instructions as to how these were to be made up on wax disks and tabletop designs. It could certainly be argued that Dee was well duped by Kelley, and that the whole thing was nothing more than the product of a fertile imagination. What seems to have convinced Dee, however, was the existence within all this material of a deep level of mathematical and alchemical consistency.
In accordance with the 'angelic' instructions, temple furniture was constructed, including a table with the mysterious letters round the edge, in the centre of which a crystal ball or 'shew-stone' was placed. Dee's original crystal, some of the wax seals and a scrying mirror made of black volcanic glass (Obsidian) can be seen today among the Elizabethan exhibits in the British Museum in Great Russell Street.
All this equipment was eventually set up in Cracow, Poland, where Dee and Kelley had a resident gig as alchemists to the local monarch. The Archangel Raphael communicated that they were to receive "49 Voyces or Callings...whereby you shall have knowledge...of all things contained within the Compasse of Nature". Another 'angel', Nalvage, then took over and spelt out the sequences of words which are now known as the Enochian Calls, together with their English language translation. The method of communication was quite laborious; only Kelley was able to see the entity, which appeared in the crystal and pointed with a rod to the characters round the perimeter of the table and in the acrostic squares. Dee noted down the sequence of letters, which, in the early sessions, were dictated backwards: as he comments "I understand it, for the efficacity of them; else, all things called would appear: and so hinder our proceeding in learning."
After some four months of this, the basic Enochian calls were complete, but it is clear that neither Dee nor Kelley appeared to have the faintest idea what to do with them; besides, other pressures had entered into their lives, not unrelated to the transmutation of base metal into gold, which was what they were supposed to be working on! It is probable that the Enochian language would never have been heard of again, had not one Meric Casaubon unearthed Dee's diary (perhaps literally), and published it in 1659, as he puts it "against Atheists, and such as do not believe that there be Divels and Spirits".
Casaubon's book "A True and Faithful Relation of What passed for many yeers between Dr John Dee and Some Spirits: Tending (had it succeeded) to a General Alteration of Most States and Kingdomes in the World" - to quote the full title - was apparently sold at the "Little North Door of St Paul's Cathedral". Copies of the original edition are now very rare, but members of the Order of the Golden Dawn (a magical group active in London at the end of the last century) appear to have had access to a copy, and, possibly, to other works by Dee giving further detail of the Enochian system. In any event they appear to have been the first people to have actually tried to do anything with the material.
Whatever the nature of it's provenance, there is little dispute that what has come down to us from Dee and Kelley is a language of some sort, in that it has syntax, grammar and some consistency of vocabulary - i.e. the same Enochian words in different calls correspond to the same English meanings. Moreover, although there are no more than about 1000 different Enochian words in the original calls, all parts of speech appear to be represented. So what use is it?
The Golden Dawn, and one of their more adventurous members, Aleister Crowley, appear to have done little more than use Dee's calls as given, usually as a means of triggering scrying sessions of their own, and some lyrical visionary writing describing explorations of the various 'Aethyrs' exists - notably in Crowley's work "The Vision and the Voice". One particular call, that of the 10th Aethyr, can be used to effect possession of an operator by one of the supernal entities of Chaos - Choronzon - sometimes referred to as the Great Demon of the Abyss. It certainly seems to have some effect in that peculiar things happen as a result, but in my own view Crowley and his associate Victor Neuberg made a mess of that particular working, and frightened other people away from using it for decades.
On a more practical level, modern Chaos Magicians, following a lead given by Peter Carroll, have started to compose ritual procedures using the vocabulary of Dee's original calls, but directed towards effecting some specific outcome of events. The consensus of opinion among people who have tried this is that it works remarkably well! The main complaint is that the vocabulary is very limited, and some extraordinary gymnastics of language are sometimes necessary to express quite simple concepts. It almost seems as if Enochian can be regarded as a 'computer programming language' which operates on objective reality.
Thus it was that earlier this year it was felt that it was about time the 'Occult Scene' had some sort of a literary award, and it was decided to inaugurate the "Choronzon Prize for Enochian Verse", to be worth 93 pounds, of course, and open to all. The announcement was made in Telegraph Hill Park, and, to give some context to the event, there was a recital of three short pieces of Enochian with suitable musical accompaniment to a somewhat bemused audience. First, to show how it should be done, an old recording of Crowley reading Dee's First Angelic Call was played over some Grateful Dead music. The effect was remarkable - a still and sunny day gave way to brewing storm-clouds, a wind picked up, and, like something from a Hammer B-Feature, a great swirling gust blew the stage backdrop away from behind the performers. The other two pieces of Enochian Verse, specially written for the occasion, were delivered live in a whirl of dust and wind-blown debris; it was all most impressive! The only regret was that the people who were supposed to video-record the event never turned up.
As for the Prize, entries are awaited! Most of the people who have been thought likely to 'walk away with it' have been designated as Distinguished Judges, so, for anyone who cares to get busy with an Enochian Dictionary, "Opportunity Knocks"... 333 - 55555 - 333.
There are many basic yoga techniques which are capable of initiating some modest level of consciousness modification. Sitting quietly while continuously repeating some simple word or phrase can produce a sense of well being or even euphoria. Mild sensory deprivation can alter the way you feel. Machines which produce some sort of sensory feedback, for example, a strobe synchronised to the alpha rhythms of your nervous system, can generate a consciousness altering resonance, or in some cases trigger an epileptic fit.
Many of these techniques are used by magicians and shamans all over the world. They are well known, anyone can use them, and there is nothing particularly special about them.
If you want to set yourself up as a guru, you choose one of these techniques, you get a few enthusiastic people around you, print some glossy PR material and tell anyone who will listen that you have received divine revelation of THE TECHNIQUE which will cure all human problems. It may help if you appear to come from some mysterious foreign country, or adopt some inoffensive but eccentric mode of personal behaviour.
You offer to initiate people, for a fee, into this "secret wisdom", but you tell them they have to submit to some sort of screening to see if they are "worthy" candidates. In the screening process you weed out anyone who is likely to see through the scam. The rest are sucked in, perhaps with some flattery about what a "spiritual" person they are, and are sworn to secrecy about the technique, sometimes in the context of a ritual initiation.
The punters go along with it, partly because the technique imparted does produce some sort of effect, however nebulous, and partly because they do not like to admit that they have wasted their money. They may be offered financial inducement to suck other friends and acquaintances into the thing, and, in extreme cases they may be induced to sign away rights in property, substantial proportions of their wages, and even to separate completely from "profane" family and friends.
This sort of thing is nothing more or less than common fraud - and it is widespread. If some outfit purporting to have exclusive title to the Secret of the Universe declines to admit you to membership, not only are they doing you a favour, they are probably also paying you a compliment, in that they reckon you are sufficiently perceptive to see through what they are up to. Don't feel upset about it!
One of the most notorious frauds of this type was perpetrated by an organisation which was offering ridiculously expensive courses in Levitation. These were backed up with photographs of people with their legs crossed in the yogic Lotus Position apparently hovering a few inches above the floor. It turned out that those sucked into this scam were encouraged to sit in that position and to "frog-hop" off the ground - this is fairly difficult, but it can be mastered by pretty well anyone with a bit of practice and gymnastic agility. An appropriately positioned camera with a wide angle lens and a fast shutter speed setting will capture the subject appearing to float in blissful contemplation.
The ability to hypnotise other people is inherently a valid and useful talent, and one that can probably be learnt by just about anyone. Some people possessed of this ability become cabaret performers and are able to demonstrate remarkable feats. Others set themselves up as hypnotherapists and are, in some cases, able to help people to stop smoking, or effect a variety of remedial treatments for a limited range of physiological and/or psychological problems.
Others, less scrupulous, are able to set themselves as Messianic figures, convincing gullible acolytes that they are God, the Devil, a re-incarnation of Aleister Crowley (or his physical offspring - plenty of scope there!) - and then conduct themselves accordingly. One of the latter category actually gets away with being able to convince people that he is privy to some arcane knowledge from his "father" which can only be imparted to disciples by means of his consummating a penetrative sexual act with them (sex of disciple immaterial). In my view this is bullshit elevated to an artform, but it is surprising how many apparently sane people fall for it.
As we approach the year 2000 there is an epidemic of doom-peddling soothsayers telling anyone who will listen that "The End Of The World Is Nigh", just as there was during the run in to the year 1000. Some of these people claim to have worked it all out from the dimensions of the passages in the Great Pyramid, some use abstruse flavours of Numerology, and others the ambiguous ramblings of Nostradamus and/or Mother Shipton, or even communications from purported flying-saucers and their occupants. The majority, however, are Christian Fundamentalists drawing inspiration from the Book of Revelation, the so-called Miracle of Fatima, or the fact that United Nations Security Council Resolution numbers have now got to 666. The pitch is usually that one can only be "saved" from this imminent apocalyptic doom either by sending them money to pray that it won't happen (this is particularly popular in the States), or by joining up so you come out of it alright regardless of how awful you are. Some of these people almost seem to want The End Of The World to happen so they can say "told you so" to the rest of us. Alarmingly, it was being reported that such people had the ear of President Reagan while he was in office, and it may be that we can be thankful for the counter balancing influence of Nancy's astrologer and/or Mikail Gorbachev.
The most extreme example of Messianic Apocalyptic Fundamentalist Bullshit in recent years, in my view, was that of the late Rev Jim Jones. James Warren Jones was born in 1931, and during the 50s and 60s established a reputation as a evangelical churchman in Indianapolis. He moved to San Francisco in 1967 and seems to have had all the charismatic/hypnotic qualities referred to above, eventually proclaiming himself the "Messiah" of the People's Temple - a Christian Evangelical Group. In this role he appears to have become obsessed with the power he could exercise over other people, to the extent that he overstepped the bounds of legality in diverting the incomes of his followers to his own use. In the face of mounting pressure he promised his flock a Utopian salvation in the jungles of South America, and emigrated in 1977 with hundreds of followers to found an agricultural commune called 'Jonestown' in Guyana. As 'Ruler' of this community he confiscated his subjects passports, together with millions of dollars, and manipulated the flock with blackmail, beatings and threats of death.
Allegations of abuses inevitably leaked out, and on 14th November 1978 Congressman Leo Ryan of California arrived in Guyana with a few newsmen and some relatives of members of Jones' flock. Four days later, as Ryan and 14 people who wished to leave Jonestown prepared to depart from a nearby airstrip, Rev Jones gave orders for them to be assassinated. The Congressman, three newsmen and one defector were killed. The rest escaped, and, fearing retribution from the authorities, Jones activated his suicide plan. On 18th November he ordered his followers to drink a cyanide-laced punch and the vast majority of them meekly obeyed. Jones himself did not commit suicide; someone appears to have shot him in the head. Guyanese troops who reached Jonestown the next day found 913 dead, including 276 children.
It was the largest mass suicide since that of the Zealots at Masada in 73 AD, and that took place in the face of imminent capture of the fortress by the Romans.
The obscenity of Jonestown occurred a mere 12 years ago, and one might imagine that it would have led to the exercise of some sort of control over the dissemination of the Fundamentalist Bullshit which these people churn out. Sadly this does not seem to have happened.
There is not a lot of difference between what Jones was preaching and the hair-brained irrefutable belief systems being promulgated today by similar Evangelical Fundamentalists. The most recent obsessive manifestation being the apparent infiltration of child protection agencies by these people, and their desperate attempt to uncover (or invent) some link between child abuse and occultism. Some small percentage of the population are paedophiles or child molesters, that is unquestioned. A percentage of the population have some interest in the occult, and it therefore follows by simple mathematics that there do quite probably exist some vanishingly small number of sick individuals who ritually abuse children. In more than twenty years I have never encountered anything of the kind, and recent assiduous police investigations would seem to suggest that my experience in that respect is not unusual.
The problem appears to be that with the demise of what they used to call "Godless Communism" the Fundamentalists are desparate to find another bogey; the concept of Devil-worship and child abuse sells gutter newspapers like hot cakes, and so the Bullshit fantasy is manufactured. The possible result, if these Zealots have their way, is that a couple of occult books on the shelf in a family house is enough to have the kids put on an 'at risk' register, or taken into 'care' and traumatised by the very agencies who are supposed to be responsible for their well-being.
So much for So-called Magic(k), Fraud, and Bullshit. Does it matter??
YES.
| Casaubon, M. | A True and Faithful Relation of what Passed 1659... between Dr John Dee and Some Spirits ... | Golden Dragon Facsimile Ed 1974 |
| Crowley, A. | Gems from the Equinox - (ed I. Regardie) | Llewellyn 1974 |
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Jones, Revd Jim
Masada |
Micropaedia - 1988 |
| Farquharson R. | Drop Out
Theory of Voting |
Anthony Blond 1968
Blackwell 1969 |
| Illuminates of Thanateros | Liber Bootleg Tape | Audiogothica 1990 |
| Regardie, I. | The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic | Falcon 1984 |
| Vinci, Leo | Gmicalzoma - An Enochian Dictionary | Regency 1976 |
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